Belatedly, she dipped in a curtsy, swallowing her shock. “My lord.”
He nodded to the footman dancing attendance, and the young man quit the room, leaving them alone. Helena’s face went hot as a new awareness of her husband hit her. They had been as intimate as a man and woman could be last night. By morning light, it was almost impossible to believe but for the memory of his touch and lips and tongue.
And him inside her.
At the last thought, her knees nearly turned to water.
“You are off to Shropshire this morning?” She forced herself to ask the question with as much studied nonchalance as she could manage. Quite as if she could not be bothered with his response, she congratulated herself. He could hardly know her hopes hinged upon his answer.
“There has been a change of plans,” he responded with equal smoothness.
A change of plans.
Her puerile heart rejoiced.
She made her way to the sideboard where a dazzling array of breakfast foods had been laid out in generous display. “Oh?”
“Indeed. I will not be traveling to Shropshire today.”
His deep baritone warned her, just before his presence at her side made her body shimmer, that he had come nearer. She told herself she would not look. That she would calmly fill her plate. But when she picked up the china, long elegant fingers were there to pluck it from her grasp.
Startled, she turned to him, finding his bright-blue gaze studying her intently. “My lord?”
“Allow me to assist you,” he said, rather than responding to her query.
“I can gather my breakfast on my own,” she countered, girding her heart against this mysterious new Huntingdon before her.
He did not seem nearly as cold, nor as aloof. And yet, he still held himself apart from her. All had not been forgiven, although he had altered his travel plans.
“Nonsense,” he clipped. “Only tell me what you wish, and it will be my pleasure to get it for you.”
The wordpleasureuttered in his silken baritone turned her insides to blancmange.
She swallowed against a rising tide of longing. This would not do. She still had no notion of where she stood with him. “Eggs, if you please. Strawberries and pineapple as well. And a rasher of bacon.”
He carried her plate to the chair nearest his and laid it upon the table linens with care, then held out her chair. Helena sat, acutely aware of his presence at her back. But while the wickedest part of her yearned for him to lean closer and attempt to steal a kiss, she told herself she was relieved when he returned to his chair and resumed his consumption of both his own repast and the newspaper.
Breakfast continued in silence, interrupted only by the clinking of the cutlery on the fine porcelain and the periodic turning ofThe Timespages.
Helena’s irritation mounted with each passing moment. They had consummated their marriage last night. She had fallen asleep with him by her side. And now, he played the gentleman, as though they were mere strangers meeting for the first time at a ball rather than husband and wife.
“When will you be traveling to Shropshire, if not today?” she asked at last, unable to bear another minute of silence.
“I have yet to decide,” he told her calmly, lifting his gaze to hers.
She pursed her lips. “When will you decide, my lord?”
She did not think she misunderstood that they were speaking of far more than his trip to Shropshire.
He quirked a brow, a slight smile curving his lips. “Are you in a hurry to be rid of me, madam?”
It was not fair that he was so beautiful, and it was also not fair that he seemed no more inclined to forgive her this morning than he had the day before.
At least he is not on a train bound for Shropshire, whispered her heart.
And that was something, she supposed.
“Of course I am not in a hurry to be rid of you, Huntingdon,” she said calmly. “You are my husband. I should like you to stay.”
